To wonder how volunteers cope with parents' stupidity?

[MeghanThyStallion]

My DC are involved in various clubs so I'm on a few WhatsApp groups used by the volunteer leaders to coordinate with parents. My goodness, but I roll my eyes so often. Some examples since Christmas:

• Trainer: "Happy New Year everyone! Don't forget we're back on Wednesday, 5pm at local leisure centre." The next few messages, all from parents: "When are we back?" "Is it usual time?" "Are we still at local school?"

• Coach: "Home game this Saturday vs Man U, meet at 10 for a 10.30 kick-off." Parents: "Is there a match this weekend?" "What time?" and my personal favourite, the parent who text in at 10.45 on match day to say their DC couldn't play because they were injured

And so on and so forth, every siglngle week. FML but I would have lost it by now. "Well, numb-nuts, if you bloody read the message I JUST sent you, you'd know the answer to that question!"

How do they do it?!

If it's a WhatsApp group then people likely have muted the notifications and so aren't up to date on the postings. My kids groups ding ding ding constantly and are a real bug annoyance.

There's a fine line between keeping people informed and others just having a chinwag on the group and irritating other people. It's the inane small talk that forces me to mute on occassion.

My DH stopped volunteering. He did it for 2 years. The other parents drove him bonkers complaining (games played, badges done etc - cubs) and never offering to help.

I'm a team manager and I just ignore those stupid questions if they're posted directly after mine! Usually some other helpful soul jumps in though.

If I do respond it's only ever to post a screenshot of the original information.

This and all the inane questions.

My ds sports team is the same. I muted it.

To be fair, DD's letters from school are ridiculously poor. They're always missing some key information, e.g. date, time, location, required payment, payment deadline, suitable clothes etc. It's bizarre. I'd offer to do them a template but fear it would just wind me up even more when they didn't use it.

I have these groups muted but check in every few days so I know what's going on. I'm not surprised at the number of posters saying it's put them off volunteering. I'd love to be on the coach chat though 😁

Some parents are ridiculous with it. I volunteered in a brownies group, we organised trips a few times a year. Every single time we would hand letters to the parents that would have the dates of the trip, the cost, the times to be dropped off, when and where to pick them up again and a kit list (which was pretty much a change of clothes, a toothbrush and pyjamas). We always went to the same site and the details were always similar. We also emailed a copy to all the parents.

We would get so many emails instantly and they were almost always asking questions that were answered in the letter. Some parents would stand at the door, holding their letter, asking us what date the trip was on. Some would turn up at the trip with their child and ask if they needed to bring pyjamas, for an overnight trip. One woman phoned me at 4 am two weeks before the trip to check the address.

I did two years before signing up to be the first aider so I didn't have to do the admin with parents anymore. Really made me question how some of them were functioning as adults.

I’ve recently given up a volunteering position and one of the main reasons is because of having to spoon-feed parents!
The majority of them were fine but the same few just ruined it with their inability to follow instructions and the constant moaning got too much in the end. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t most of the time!

Good! 😂

I had to laugh in recognition at this. Our reception class what’s app group is like this.
To be fair it happens all the time on here too-
OP: I have two DC age 5 & 3
Poster: how old are the kids?
Arghhh! Fgs read the updates!

If it were me I'd write in the original message "no question will be answered if it asks about information already laid out above." and then ignore ignore ignore all the stupid questions.

In fact at work we have an automatic reply that says roughly this. I still sometimes reply to dumb questions if I have time and feel like it, but otherwise I just ignore.

Best ones are

YOU HAVEN'T SEND ME AN EMAIL.

How did you know to phone us about the trip 187 seconds after we sent you the email., then?

Communication skills in general in this country, by both individuals and organisations, are absolutely terrible and getting worse. You should only have to tell someone something once. Then they should remember it.

Yes, I so agree. I send a lot of reply emails with the very passive-aggressive "as per details in our previous emails on x date and y date".

As for the ones you normally have to drag money out of being the first to pay if it's something that's first-come, first-served!!!

One of my most infuriating exchanges...

Parent: where do these badges go
Me (leader): those ones on the left sleeve, that one on the front, link to official diagram.
Parent: no you're wrong, parent at X group says they go here instead

If they wish to believe another random parent over me that's their perogative really (and that Cub has badges in different places)

What's app broadcast groups are really helpful to minimise this kind of crap, only one to one communication so there aren't a million pings on everyones phones and its harder to "lose" a message . As long as the numpty parents save the admin's number in their phone, which can be akin to the lost labour of hercules.

I would copy and paste the original email body. I managed to resist the temptation of add a bloody great red arrow pointing to the information. But it could be a close run thing, sometimes.

When the original You Haven't Given Me The Information emails came they, they usually came with the original email attached, too.

I concluded eventually that the reason why so many school letters omit information was that after twenty years of these calls, staff had probably decided there's no point bothering as they'll only phone up/email back anyway.

I agree Op. For my son's club, it's a specific app. There was one mum who was always late and would giving a running commentary on their eta. She also asked multiple stupid questions. Reader I muted that App.

Fortunately they moved after Covid. I feel bloody sorry for the volunteers where they moved to.

Last time I volunteered and ran a trip I wrote a letter saying meet at 9, we will get the 9:15 train.
Night before I emailed and added to the WhatsApp group, ‘remember don’t be late. The train leaves at 9:15
Repeated this at 8am so it wasn’t lost in the chat
At 9:05 in WhatsApp I tagged anyone not there. At 9:10 I asked a helper to call a few people who weren’t there.

FOUR parents were late, didn’t answer their phones or the texts we sent. There was serious outrage we’d got on the 9:15 train without their children. Angry messages, refund demands, angry call and one child even withdrawn. No traffic at that time on a Sunday morning, and I think most could have walked in 15min.

The next train btw was half an hour later, would have made a group of over 30 very late. It was also lashing it down with rain that day and we had not enough shelter on the platform as the station was locked still. Yet they believed we should have waited.

I was a scout leader for years, loved the organisation, loved the kids but stopped because I couldn't be dealing with the parents any more.

School chat group is like this. One of the mums called her daughter's teacher a "twat" today for never sharing info about homework... The head of year posts it on Google classroom every Thursday without fail. I wanted to reply 'it's not her fault if you don't look at it, twat.'

The best way to deal with this is call out this nonsense publicly.
I am on a university course and the amount of "clarification" emails two of the students send incessantly to the tutors is actually quite something. How did she respond? She said this in the lecture... "I don't see what the issue is here. We have the dates up and I am not going to be responding to messages when the information is out there already. Some personal responsibility is needed here. You aren't children".

Alternatively just stop answering. They will soon stop it.

We had badges not only in all sorts of random places but attached in weird ways, like double sided tape, staples or even once a pin

I do rugby tots, so parents book online at specific venues on specific days at specific times, you would be surprised how many turn up to the wrong session, or at the wrong venue. How do they manage to go on a holiday?

I wonder if they're the same numb-nuts as here on MN who can't/won't read the original post before saying something stupid?

In the sports club my ds is in if someone posts a question tats been answered above I just report it with the pointy finger to the message.

Now everyone does it to the few twats who ask a question that literally is in response to have been given the information.

Those few parents just respond "thanks" still.

They actually seem entirely oblivious 🤣